Yes, the NSA Does Like Small Business

Linda Burger, a technology transfer agent with the National Security Agency, acknowledges that the super secret spying outfit hasn’t always been so open about working with new businesses, garnering the nickname “No Such Agency.”

“Now we have marketing materials,” Burger said, opening her presentation Monday to members of The Patuxent Partnership at the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center.

Burger said people are surprised to find that the NSA has unclassified technology patents that it licenses out to startup businesses, and they are even more surprised that they don’t necessarily have to have security clearances to hold a contract with the agency.

This is critical, because the NSA, with its complex at Fort Meade, Maryland, is the largest tenant command located on any Maryland military installation, according to Julie Woepke of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development’s Office of Military and Federal Affairs.

The word had only just reached the few dozen attendees of Monday’s presentation. When Burger asked if any of them had any business experience with the NSA or the intelligence community.

Burger began by explaining that the NSA’s prime business is cryptography and communications.

“We protect our communications, and we monitor the communications of our foreign adversaries,” Burger said. “We are in the communications business. … We’re code makers and code breakers. … We are looking at adversary communications; we are not collecting information about your grandma.”

The NSA holds patented technologies in acoustics, advanced mathematics, communications, computer technology, information processing, micro electronics, networking, optics, security and signal processing.

“A lot of what we have is high up on the technology readiness scale,” Burger said, noting that several of the NSA’s technologies are mature enough to be mass produced and marketed.

However, licensing an NSA technology is often a side door into the agency for small businesses, Burger said. The front door is the agency’s Office of Small Business Programs.

The NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade is “like a small city,” Burger said. It has a lot of both high and low tech needs, “everything from supercomputers to dog food,” Burger said, noting that the agency’s K-9 unit has a food contract.

“You do not need a clearance to win a contract with the National Security Agency,” Burger said. However, your employees executing the contract will need top secret facilities clearance, personnel security clearance and the ability to access a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).

But Burger warned that the NSA can be a tough place get started in federal government contracting, saying, “We are not the easiest first customer. You need to cut your teeth somewhere else.” She suggested starting out as a subcontractor to an NSA prime contractor to learn the ropes.

Ron Kaese, director of the federal programs division of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) said his agency is there to help small businesses meet the right contacts in the NSA, noting, “this is still a face-to-face contact sport.”

For more information on how to work with the NSA, contact Burger at 443-479-2384 or Kaese at 410-715-4170.